Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!
No, it’s not. It’s approaching the problem like Chamberlain. We’re dealing with people who think children in concentration camps is normal. You don’t beat nazis by doing them favors.
I have absolutely no idea why you think this is a great post. The first third is fine and all. The last two thirds is mind bogglingly naive. Mitch isn’t going to do you a favor if you scratch his back.
Let's deconstruct it:
See that's the interesting question. Will the landscape look a lot different very soon?
Good question: will the dinosaurs retain their stranglehold on power within the Democratic party or are the cracks we see harbingers of a coming change? Nothing guarantees continuity of power. Power is, well, powerful, so it tends to protect itself, but if you look at the demographics of the party both in Membership and in the electorate, a change
is coming. The Democratic establishment made its peace with wealth long ago because it draws it's membership from the privileged, but it faces a huge challenge in the racial change of the party (gender not so much: there are plenty of wealthy, entitled white women to hand the reins to). The way parties have handled this in the past is co-option: like the Raj, you allow a subset of POC into the Club and keep the game going. But there aren't
that many Uncle Toms out there.
The timeframe in which that changes occurs alters how AOC et al should play this.
Politics is and always has been about relationships if you want to get something done. You do people favors, you work on their behalf, a credit goes in your column.
I saw it when I worked for the North Dakota legislature. People had no idea why their bill got killed. It didn't get killed by the committee chairman with whom they thought they had a good relationship. It got killed by someone behind the scenes who was owed a favor by that committee chairman.
You seem to have read this as D v R. I read it as AOC v Pelosi. But let's look at it from the POV of your interpretation.
It still cannot be exaggerated and it has nothing to do with opposing the Nazis on policy. The alternative isn't to kick over the table -- the table's going nowhere. The alternative is to leave the table and give the Nazis a supermajority. That's what the German Socialists did in the Reichstag when the Nazis had power. The result was the Nazis simply passed sweeping legislation outlawing all other parties. Symbolism is for saints and losers. The principled holding of one's breath does nothing but make you unconscious.
You look at a guy like Paul Wellstone. Probably as far left as there was for his time.
Cough. I'll just say that you guys
really need to get out more. Paul Wellstone was Milton Friedman compared to the true radical left.
Yet he was well-liked by people in Congress on both sides of the aisle, even though many of them thought of his politics as extreme.
Of course if you view this as D v R it is rhetorical false equivalency. "People who want to castrate immigrants regard those who do not as
extreme." That's right out of the Rube textbook for normalizing fascism by claiming that the midpoint between the sane and the insane is the center. No -- the sane are the center. In our environment the Dems are the center, even right-of-center, and the GOP has exited Loonyland and is on it's way to the Galaxy of Hopeless Delusion at warp speed.
But again, I viewed it as AOC v Pelosi and that he is saying AOC will attract more flies with honey than vinegar.
It's a relationship business. Kind of like the corporate world. Four representatives in the US House have about as much power as you or I have if they don't build relationships. Energy, enthusiasm, great ideas and a million twitter followers won't get you anywhere, alone.
This is, again, very true. Think of who runs for Congress. Members are social animals even more than the gen pop. These are dogs, not cats. They operate by the slack-jawed, empty-skulled, shifty-eyed inauthenticity of the salesman. The unique skill which brought them to the majors is the ability to manipulate and guffaw their way through life with an otherwise deficient set of intellectual and moral skills, because that's what appeals to the average voter. Clear your mind and imagine... Paul Ryan.
You can't just ignore that.
So what can AOC do? She is lightyears beyond most of her D peers and all of her R peers both mentally and ethically. She should not compromise on those attributes. But. She does need to realize that truth does not rule by decree. Like any other smart person in a dumb room she needs to read those she deals with and appeal to them on their limited level. That is the only way, in the words of Henry II, to be "50, king, and alive at the same time."
